Endometriosis: the bloggers' tales.

To cite: Quilliam S. J Fam Plann Reprod Health Care 2014;40:142–144. BACKGROUND To bridge the gap – that’s what my brief for the Journal has always been. To create understanding between reproductive health professionals and health service consumers – to help the former appreciate the needs of the latter. This is why I often base my columns directly on the experiences of end-users: women patients with cervical cancer, teenage students needing sex education, purchasing customers using pharmaceutical services, being recent examples. But when the Journal Editor recently tasked me with writing about endometriosis (Box 1), I found myself unexpectedly log-jammed. Despite the fact that over 170 million women worldwide suffer, I knew no one with the condition. I didn’t even know anyone who knew anyone with the condition. And the devoted user-organisations couldn’t deliver me the numbers of globally-based, first-hand accounts that I ideally needed. And then, I had a Eureka moment: blogs. A Google trawl threw up nearly 3 million hits, which I narrowed down to 70 blogs written by women with endometriosis, chronicling insights, realisations and emotions that allowed me a glimpse into the experience. Which is why, dear reader, you are privy to a first: for the first time the Journal’s Consumer Correspondent column is based entirely on bloggers’ tales.